2017-09-08 05:28:11 UTC

Alyosha, the fourth full-length album from Philadelphia-based guitarist Patkus, released on September 1st.

An hour-long composition comprising six movements with a prologue and epilogue, Alyosha stands somewhere at the intersection of modern classical, post-rock, and American primitive.

“I was reading The Brother’s Karamazov — which is awesome by the way — and wanted to make something of a similar scale and scope. I wanted to aim high, take a leap of faith, pretend to be a better musician than I actually am, and see what would happen.”

From John Fahey to Mogwai, Steve Reich to Ali Akbar Khan, Patkus' music is an idiosyncratic blend of influences and composition techniques.

2017-09-06 05:21:30 UTC

Airships on the Water is an instrumental post rock band from Fayetteville, AR, USA, formed by multi-instrumentalist Russel Hensley. Hensley, who plays drums for the math rock band Take Shapes, started the project as a way to experiment with and expand on a backlog of keyboard riffs and drum parts he had written.

Drawing inspiration from the infectious hooks of El Ten Eleven, the emotional power of Explosions in the Sky, and the rhythmic complexity of Japanese post rockers Toe, Hensley started writing and overdubbing new parts to flesh out the sound of his existing arrangements. He carefully layered beautiful keyboard melodies, bass guitar hooks, intricate drum patterns, and rich synth textures onto these skeletal arrangements, shaping them into catchy instrumental post rock songs. Bit by bit, a chilled out sound with subtle math rock influences emerged, and Beneath a Thousand Branches was born.

2017-08-29 21:50:27 UTC

Dan Caine is ambient/post-rock musician from Merseyside, England. A pioneer in the movement, Caine uses powerful, layered guitar melodies to create an atmosphere of an intense range of thought and emotion as he explores the depths of the human psyche. His music is a free-flow of subconscious urge and instinct; a deep dive into the unhindered world of the Id. Much like a fine wine, these meditative works expose more and more of their depth with each listen, and like a mood ring, they morph and change to reflect the state of the listener perceiving them. Caine’s music is also richly melodic and is layered with vibrant textures, created primarily from his collection of guitars, producing brooding atmospheres and serene sonic landscapes.

The Jackson Pollock of ambient post-rock, Caine is a master of breaking music down to its most basic elements and arranging them in a work of abstract purity. This enables the listener to explore their own connections to the sound and engage with the piece less as a listener, and more as an observer of aural art. His music is broad and guiding, yet flexible and undemanding, allowing the observer space with which to process their own humanity within it.

Dan Caine, born in 1988 in Wirral, England, first picked up the guitar at age 15, inspired by a lot of alternative music, as well as his own father who played the classical guitar. He has had no formal musical training or tutoring, save for being taught a few basic chords from his father. He realized early on that making music was a great way of expressing himself and began recording his experimentations as a hobby. Eventually, in 2013, he published his first album, “Ephemeris”, which was a collection of some of his best ambient pieces that he had made of over the previous years. Since then, his music has evolved and has primarily drawn on influences from ambient, post-rock and new-age music.

2017-08-16 06:16:57 UTC

"A Commending Paean for the Forgotten Henrietta Swan Leavitt" is a full length album by Dore Mear Beon. It is emotive progressive instrumental rock album, layered with an album narrative that explores cosmological and human themes, mixing the personal with the universal which reflects the music's balance of intricate song structures with affective harmonies.

Recommended for musicians:

GroundBurst is an instrumental rock trio whose sound strikes for the band’s kaleidoscopic approach and wide-open mindset. The band consists of Phil, Si, and Erik, respectively on guitars, bass & keys, and drums. These three talented musicians set out to create a lush, diverse and textural musical backdrop, borrowing from influences as diverse as electronic music, psychedelia, rock and even jazz with a minimalistic flair. Their recent release, “Triad” is an EP featuring 3 original compositions, as the title of the release might lead you to guess!

These Are Truly The Last Days is a musical project with a driven experimental twist. Their music blurs the lines between various genres, including ambient, electronica, glitch hop, and more. The project’s self-titled studio effort features 11 studio tracks.